The Reluctant Feline
by R4v3n Kn1ght
Summary: This was not in Minerva McGonagall's job description! She did not sign up to watch over Harry Potter in quite this way. Pre-First Year. Re-Post, with apologies


**Author's Note:** Random "what-if" thought I had. This is humor, and not to be taken seriously! I do not own Harry Potter, or any recognizable characters, locations, etc. They all belong to JK Rowling.

**The Reluctant Feline**

"Albus! I will not – I repeat, will not – continue this ridiculous charade!" fumed a tense Professor McGonagall as she burst into the Headmaster's office in Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had forgotten however, that Dumbledore was scheduled for another meeting with one of their snarkiest professors at the time that she entered the room. That very same snarky professor turned his head slowly to face her, an oily smile spreading across his lips.

"If you are about to confess your undying, uncontrollable affection for the headmaster, I will leave." He barely paused for an answer. "Or I could always stay to see something as momentous as this."

McGonagall stormed over to him, with her wand pointed at the dark-haired man's chest. "You've gotten comfortable here since becoming a professor, Severus Snape. Keep in mind, young man, I am fully capable of making you uncomfortable."

He continued to look at her, his twisted smile never faltering. "Of that," he said, in a completely calm voice. "I have no doubt."

The other occupant of the room spoke up. "Severus, would you mind resuming this discussion of ours at another time?"

"Of course, headmaster," he replied. Severus gave McGonagall a pointed look before he left the headmaster's office.

Before the door had even closed all the way, Dumbledore began to speak again to the still tense McGonagall. "And what charade is it that you refuse to do, Minerva?"

"I refuse to monitor the Potter boy!"

Albus stared in surprise. "Surely he isn't that terrible of a child."

McGonagall huffed. "No! He is not the problem! It's the rest of them! You have no idea the sort of people they are, Albus!"

The wizard swished his wand at one of the armchairs on the other side of his desk. The chair shifted as though offering itself to McGonagall. "Sit, down, Minerva, and tell me all about your problems. I'm sure we could figure something out. Potter's safety must be monitored until he begins attending this school. What you're doing is vitally important."

McGonagall threw herself into the chair. "Nowhere in my job description did it state that something like this would be a duty of mine."

Dumbledore didn't even bother to contest it. He simply plucked a lemon drop from the huge bowl of them on his desk and popped it into his mouth. With an indulgent smile, he listened as his Deputy Headmistress began to tell him what had happened.

~X~X~X~X~X~

Minerva McGonagall transformed herself into her Animagus form – a tabby cat with very unusual markings, particularly around the eyes. Now on four legs she resumed her normal route back towards Number Four, Privet Drive. The first week was difficult. The Dursley family was hesitant to take in the apparently stray cat, but after a week of pathetically meowing at their window during their favorite television program, the front door opened and stayed open until the tabby cat pranced into the house.

She walked up to the front door and stared at it. She was not looking forward to the horror beyond the door in the form of a very rotund child. However, the only reason she was here was to see to the welfare of the young Harry Potter. From what she'd seen so far, it was not all that great.

Then again, she hadn't seen much of Harry. Her time had been rather consumed by the horrid attentions of the boy's cousin…Dudley.

Reluctantly, Minerva meowed at the door. When it didn't open for a moment, she began to scratch at the door, hoping to alert the inhabitants of her presence. She waited for another few moments, before she began meowing again, louder than before.

The mail slot opened and looked at the little guest on the doorstep. McGonagall recognized those green eyes. "Dudley?"

"What do you want?" came the scream from several rooms away.

"The cat's back."

Suddenly, there was a sound like an elephant stampeding towards the door. Then, the green eyes vanished from the mail slot, followed by a thud. Then, small, bug-eyes peered through the mail slot. "Mummy!" shouted the owner of those eyes. "Cat's come back!"

Then, the mail slot fell closed again and a second later the door was wrenched open. Before McGonagall could walk into the house with a little dignity, a hugely swollen hand reached out and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and hoisted her into the house roughly. She was squished against the round and insulated chest of the whale of a boy. As he spun around quickly, which slightly made her sick with the quick motion, she caught a glimpse of the other boy – little Harry – getting back to his feet, rubbing his shoulder as he did. It was one of the only glances she saw of Harry Potter that day.

"Mummy!" shouted the boy as he roughly bounded into the dining room where his mother and father were seated at the table, in the middle of enjoying breakfast. "Look who came back!"

"Give it some bacon, Dudley!" shouted the monster of a man at the table.

"Oh do you think that's wise, Vernon?" asked the woman.

"Course it is! Thing needs a little fattening up!" He picked off some bacon from the plate in the center of the table and held it out to Dudley, who waddled his way over.

McGonagall was offended at the statement that she needed fattening up. Obviously compared to the boy nearly suffocating her she looked tiny! That was only because he was so humungous! She thought that she was perfectly healthy! Before she knew it, a piece of bacon was being shoved against her mouth. She tried to move her head out of the way, but the bacon followed whichever way she moved. Finally, she decided to end her own torment and she began munching away on the bacon.

She only managed to eat a half of a piece of bacon before she found the room spinning as Dudley turned around again. Then, she was jarred up and down as he bounded through the hallway, then making a sharp left and charging up the steps. McGonagall was getting more and more nauseous with every thundering jolt. Her eyes grew half-lidded and her ears slowly began to flatten against her head.

Dudley bounded into his room and slammed the door once he made it through the doorway. She was trapped once again with this demon-child in his room. There was no escape. He put her down and she immediately went to his door and began meowing as loudly as she could. Then, it was like she was bashed on the head! But it was only Dudley slamming his hand on her head before he roughly ran it down her neck, in a violent kind of petting. Then he bashed her on the head again, and repeated the whole process.

Suddenly, McGonagall's nausea was reaching an extreme level. With being so jostled around and now getting bashed in the head repeatedly her senses were everywhere. She began heaving near the door. When the wheezing little squeaks began to come from her throat, and her tongue stuck out in her heaving, Dudley began screaming.

"Mummy! Mummy! The cat's sick!"

McGonagall unsteadily began walking away from the door, continuing to heave. She had no intention of getting squashed by the door should Mr. or Mrs. Dursley come bursting through the door. She made it towards the boy's second pair of trainers when she was overwhelmed with the overpowering disgusting scent of smelly feet wafting from the shoes! Her heaving increased in intensity.

Finally, McGonagall vomited up the bacon she had been force fed along with some bile.

Dudley's reaction would have been the same if an unsuspecting student wandering in the Forbidden Forest were to get attacked by a Giant at full speed. The boy screamed and flailed everywhere. "Mummy! Daddy!" He flung his door wide and shouted for his parents. "My shoes are ruined!"

Before McGonagall had even a chance to recover from the violence of her stomach or the burning sensation in her esophagus, Mr. Dursley was in the room with a rolled up newspaper, roaring at her like a dragon. If he could, she was sure he would be shooting flames from his mouth. He looked like he was trying to with how his face was already purple and his moustache twitched. As much as her sickness allowed, she scurried out of Dudley's room and headed for the stairs. She ran through the legs of Mrs. Dursley.

"Boy!" she heard screamed from the upstairs as she struggled down the stairs.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon?" replied Harry from the bottom of the stairs.

"Throw that creature outside where it belongs!"

McGonagall froze on the steps and stared at Harry, praying that the boy knew to not jostle her. Harry held out a hand gently. "Come here. You have to go." He took several steps forward, hesitantly.

Apparently it was too slow for Vernon Dursley. "Now, Potter!" he shouted from the top of the stairs.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon." Harry scooped McGonagall's cat form in his arms and carried her over to the front door. He opened it and set her down on the doorstep outside. McGonagall turned to look at Harry. She wanted to turn into her human form, but she knew that Harry knew nothing of the world to which he truly belonged. She wanted to ask him if he was alright, if he was happy. "I wish I could leave if I got sick. Only thing is…where would I go?" McGonagall walked up to Harry and snuggled into his hand, purring.

Harry gave her a gentle shove away. "Go on, now. Find a new home. S'gotta be better than here." Then, he smiled sadly at her and closed the door.

~X~X~X~X~X~

Albus Dumbledore looked at Minerva McGonagall with hard eyes. He had long since finished his lemon drop and was now gazing stoically at her. "I see," he said, at the conclusion of the tale.

"That's it?" she asked. "That's it? 'I see?'"

"I see that you won't be welcome by the Dursleys again, Minerva." He then plucked his feather quill from the ink well on his desk and began to jot a few words on a piece of parchment.

"He should be removed from their home! He obviously doesn't even want to be there!" She saw that her arguments to get Harry Potter away from the Dursleys was being ignored. "What – what are you doing, Albus?"

Without looking up, he replied. "I'm writing to my alternate plan."

"Alternate…plan?"

"In the event that you were injured, kept in the house, or…something else…I made arrangements with a neighbor to the Dursleys to watch over Harry."

McGonagall sputtered in a mixture of anger and horror. "Then, it was unnecessary for me to be sent in there!"

"Not at all. You saw the family in the privacy of their own home. It is very helpful information. However, it seems that you will not be able to observe them anymore."

"Even if I could there is nothing that could tempt me to go through something like that – that abuse ever again!" She turned then to leave the office.

"Which is why I am calling in the services of Arabella Figg."

McGonagall stopped. "A squib? You're going to have a squib watch out for Potter?"

"He cannot be exposed to many things magic…at least for the time being."

Having heard enough, and thinking Dumbledore's reasoning was beyond help, McGonagall threw open the door to the office. "Where are you going, Minerva?"

"To find Severus!"

"Why would you go looking for him?"

"Because I need something to calm down! He is the potions master, isn't he? Since he makes the majority of them for Madam Pomfrey, I'm going directly to the brewer himself!"

Dumbledore gave a little wave at her. "Oh, feel better!"

"For your sake I hope I do!" Then, McGonagall walked out the room and used her wand to slam the door shut beyond her. Dumbledore did not even seem to mind. He sealed up the envelope on his desk with a smile on his face. As he wrote the recipient's name on the envelope he wondered what other crazy things he could manipulate his staff into doing all in the name of protecting Harry Potter.

_Thank you for reading. Reviews fuel writers, so let me know your impressions. Hope everyone enjoys it. ~ RK _


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